Chapter Two

The Writing Process

English Skills, 10e

English Skills with Readings, 8e

2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

 Chapter 2

The Process: 4 Steps in a Nutshell

Discover a clearly stated point or
thesis.
Provide logical, detailed support for
your thesis.
Organize and connect your
supporting material.
Revise and edit so that your sentences
are effective and error-free.
English Skills, 10e 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
English Skills with Readings, 8e
 Chapter 2

Prewriting Techniques
Freewriting
Questioning
Making a List
Clustering
Preparing a Scratch
Outline
English Skills, 10e 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
English Skills with Readings, 8e
 Chapter 2

Freewriting
Write nonstop for ten minutes and jot down
in rough sentences or phrases everything
that comes to mind about a possible topic.
There are lots of things I get annoyed by.
One of them is politishans, in fact I am so
annoyed by them the last thing I want is to
write about them. Another thing that
bothers me is noisy people at the movies. I
used to love the movies.
English Skills, 10e 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
English Skills with Readings, 8e
 Chapter 2

Freewriting
Do not worry (yet) about
spelling or punctuation.

[. . .] There are lots of things

I get annoyed by. One of them
is politishans. [. . .]

English Skills, 10e 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
English Skills with Readings, 8e
 Chapter 2

Questioning ???????????
Ask as many questions as you can
think of about your subject.
Why?
When?
Where?
Who?
How?
?
English Skills, 10e 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
English Skills with Readings, 8e
 Chapter 2

Making a List
(aka brainstorming)
Collect a list of ideas and details that relate to
your subject.
Do not worry about the order of the list.
Traffic is bad between my house and theatre
Noisy patrons
Dont want to run into Jeremy
Hard to be on a diet

English Skills, 10e 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
English Skills with Readings, 8e
 Chapter 2

Clustering
(aka diagramming or mapping)
Write your subject in the center of a blank sheet
of paper.
Jot down ideas and details around the
subject.
Use lines, boxes, arrows and circles to show
relationships among ideas and details.

English Skills, 10e 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
English Skills with Readings, 8e
 Chapter 2

Clustering
Traffic getting
to theater Line at
box office Might see
old boyfriend
Too many people

Movies
Temptations Noisy People
Adults
Chocolate Teenagers
Popcorn
bars
Yelling Showing off Coughing Telling Plot
and sneezing

English Skills, 10e 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
English Skills with Readings, 8e
 Chapter 2

Preparing a Scratch Outline

Think carefully about:

The point you are making
The supporting items for that
point
The order in which you will
arrange those items

English Skills, 10e 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
English Skills with Readings, 8e
 Chapter 2

Writing a First Draft

Your Goals:
State your main idea clearly.
Develop the content of paragraph
with plenty of specific details.

English Skills, 10e 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
English Skills with Readings, 8e
 Chapter 2

Revision
Set your draft aside for a while.
Work from typed or printed text.
Read your draft aloud.
Add your thoughts and changes
above the lines or in the margins
of your paragraph.
English Skills, 10e 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
English Skills with Readings, 8e
 Chapter 2

2 Stages to the Revising Process

Revising content
Revising sentences

English Skills, 10e 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
English Skills with Readings, 8e
 Chapter 2

Revising Content
Unity
Main idea must be clearly stated
in beginning of paragraph.
Supporting points must back up
main idea.

English Skills, 10e 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
English Skills with Readings, 8e
 Chapter 2

Revising Content
Support Must have
support...
At least three separate points
must support the main idea.
Plenty of specific evidence
must be provided for each
supporting point.

English Skills, 10e 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
English Skills with Readings, 8e
 Chapter 2

Revising Sentences
Use to balance words and
ideas:

Correct: The mugger jumped out and scared her.

Incorrect: The mugger jumped out and scares her.

English Skills, 10e 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
English Skills with Readings, 8e
 Chapter 2

Revising Sentences
Keep voice and tense consistent.
Jean punched down the risen yeast dough in
the bowl. Then you dump it onto the floured
work table and knead it into a smooth, shiny
ball.

Jean punched down the risen yeast dough in the bowl.

Then she dumped it onto the floured work table and
kneaded it into a smooth shiny ball.

English Skills, 10e 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
English Skills with Readings, 8e
 Chapter 2

Revising Sentences
Use verbs.
Forms of to be:
Passive: is
The car was crashed by am
me. are
was
Active: were
been
I crashed the car.

English Skills, 10e 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
English Skills with Readings, 8e
 Chapter 2

Revising Sentences

Avoid slang,
clichs,
pretentious
language,
and
wordiness.
English Skills, 10e 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
English Skills with Readings, 8e
 Chapter 2

Revising Sentences

The truck was speeding.

The truck was brown.
The truck skidded on some ice.
The truck almost hit a police officer.
The police officer was startled.
The police officer was young. The brown speeding truck
startled the young police officer
as it skidded on some ice
and almost hit him.

English Skills, 10e 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
English Skills with Readings, 8e
 Chapter 2

Editing

grammar
punctuation
spelling
English Skills, 10e 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
English Skills with Readings, 8e